May 16, 2010
Reported by Sam Lee
Written by Lydia Ma

Near the spot where Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell first began his ministry in Taiwan more than 100 years ago is an old PCT church known as Cihou Church. This church held a groundbreaking ceremony on May 8 in anticipation for a 2-year church construction project. The new church building will include a museum for locals and tourists to view the church's history.

According to Cihou Church's pastor, Rev. Yu Yi-feng, the old church building was already 75 years old. Though many people were fond of the building, it had become an unsafe building that could collapse at any moment due to severe structural damage and cracks in several parts of the building. After a lot of consideration, church leaders decided to tear down and rebuild the church building.

Rev. Yu also announced that the new building's chapel would accommodate up to 300 people and the upper floors would include a manse and 14 classrooms. These rooms would be used for Sunday Schools, community outreach ministries, new immigrants outreach ministries, etc. The estimated price tag for the new building is slightly above NT$80 million.

Tearing down the old building has not been without struggle and a sense of dismay. One blogger wrote: "In the old days, a lot of hard work was put into building the church. But now, the building is being coldly torn down with heavy machinery under pressure from church members. The building's splendor from bygone days will soon become just another page in history."

This blogger added that it was important for churches to achieve a balance between preservation of cultural heritage and church ministry expansion.

Taiwan Church News